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Case Study: Olympic Sculpture Park, Weiss Manfredi Architects

This project was a case-study research project on Weiss Manfredi's Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle Washington. The study focused on a specific material used in the project: earth. Since the site was a former Unocal transfer station, the earth was highly contaminated with petroleum and other toxic and bio-accumulative substances. Weiss Manfredi's design strategy took note of the condition of the land and soil and implemented a remediation plan that sought to decontaminate or otherwise detoxify the site. In addition, they incorporated a novel form of earthwork termed "mechanically stabilized earth" that added an element of structural integrity to otherwise amorphous soil.